Barbara’s latest ethnicity estimate from Ancestry DNA
Eastern Europe & Russia 29% Germanic Europe 23% England & Northwestern Europe 23% Wales 11% Sweden & Denmark 9% Balkans 3% Norway 2%
Tim’s latest ethnicity estimate from Ancestry DNA
England & Northwestern Europe 67% Wales 13% Ireland 9% Germanic Europe 5% Sweden & Denmark 2% Scotland 2% Norway 2%
Ancestry.com has updated its ethnicity estimates for us again. See past ones here.
What I found of interest was some of the “genetic communities” we were placed in. Communities are formed when they identify AncestryDNA members whose ancestors probably came from the same place or cultural group.
Tim was added to the Early Connecticut & New York Settlers group, which agrees with his ancestors’ paper trails.
I was added to the Poland, Slovakia, Hungary & Romania group. I found this one interesting in light of my cousin’s recent discoveries of our Ukrainian grandparents’ Polish/Ruthenian/Rusyn roots.
Another curious group for me is Northern New England Settlers. The paper trail hasn’t led me to this area. But, for many years I have been frustrated in my dream of tracing my maternal line back to my first foremother to come to this country. I haven’t got very far.
Emma Freeman Thompson b. 1906 Lynn, Massachusetts Amanda Eliza Hamblin b. 1879 Dennis, Massachusetts Annie Eliza Baker b. 1845 Dennis, Massachusetts Eliza R. Eldridge b. 1823 Dennis, Massachusetts Nancy Roberson b. c. 1807 in Maine (?)
I have a record of Nancy Roberson’s marriage to Leonard Eldridge in Harwich, Massachusetts on 20 October 1820. The 1870 census record and her death record say she was born in Maine. But no names for her parents! So many questions but this seems to explain my inclusion in the Northern New England Settlers genetic community. The search continues!
Latest statistics: New London County now has 16,753 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of those, 80 people are currently in the hospital and 364 have lost their lives. That’s 10,105 new cases since December 6 when I last reported. I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t thought of updating the statistics for almost 2 months.
Connecticut’s positive test rate is now 3.64%. 9% of Connecticut’s residents have had their first dose of vaccine. I’m getting antsy. So far individuals over the age of 75 can make appointments to receive their vaccinations. Waiting impatiently for it to be 65+ for Tim and who-knows-when for me (being only 64)…
Connecticut has had 7,020 deaths since the pandemic began. We lost 8,500 in the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. I hope we don’t match or go past that number before this is over. 😟
I’ve been having trouble with one of my eyes. I had a flasher episode for several days late in December and when I got a clear bubble shaped floater a few days later I decided to put my fear of COVID-19 aside and headed to the ophthalmologist. I went back for a one month check on Thursday and everything is looking okay so far. The doctor said the month and the year following a flasher episode is the danger zone for damage to retina. So I have to go back in three months for another check. In the meantime, the floater looks less like a bubble and more like a blob of diffused light. She says the floater is actually shaped like a horseshoe.
Tim says his floaters are dark specks. I mentioned this to the doctor and she said the clear ones are more serious. But she’s cautiously optimistic that the situation has resolved itself.
At first I was finding the floater too distracting to do any reading but my brain seems to be getting used to the mysterious blob and sometimes now I don’t even see it. So I started reading a wonderful story, The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, which my daughter and son-in-law gave me for Christmas. It’s been a long time since I’ve read any fiction and this reminds me of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, but set in medieval Russia rather than medieval Norway. I’m loving it so much!!! It’s a wonderful distraction from the pandemic and the weather.
Barbara’s latest ethnicity estimate from Ancestry DNA
Eastern Europe & Russia 41% England & Northwestern Europe 26% Scotland 12% Germanic Europe 9% Wales 7% The Balkans 3% Norway 2%
Tim’s latest ethnicity estimate from Ancestry DNA
England & Northwestern Europe 71% Ireland 13% Scotland 6% Wales 6% Sweden 2% Norway 2%
It’s only been 9 months since our last DNA ethnicity results have been updated! See last ones here.
As you may know, we’re constantly evolving the technology and methods behind AncestryDNA®. Using a combination of scientific expertise, the world’s largest online consumer DNA database, and millions of family trees linked with DNA results, we’re releasing our most precise DNA update yet. ~ AncestryDNA email
Of course I find it terribly exciting to make note of all the fine-tuning that has been done. Ireland and Scotland got separated and I wound up with no Irish, but with 12% Scottish ancestry. Baltic and Italian heritage disappeared, but Norwegian held steady at 2%, and new are Wales (7%, separated out from the old England, Wales and Northwestern Europe grouping) and the Balkans (3%). Eastern Europe & Russia percentage stayed about the same, but the map extended much farther east. In the years to come perhaps there will be more fine-tuning of my Ukrainian roots, as I have so little to go on for my father’s ancestry.
Wales got separated out for Tim, too, at 6%, and he’s still plenty of English, Scottish, Irish and Northwestern Europe. New for him is Sweden at 2%. He maintained his 2% from Norway.
And now, to see how it plays out for one of our children:
Nate’s latest ethnicity estimate from Ancestry DNA
Germanic Europe 26% England & Northwestern Europe 20% Eastern Europe & Russia 18% Scotland 12% Ireland 6% Sweden 5% Wales 4% Norway 4% Baltics 3% France 2%
If we try to add up the percenatges, they don’t add up. 🙂 Nate has more Germanic Europe than we could possibly have given him! (Thank goodness he turned up as our son, though, on the DNA test – phew!) And the Baltic which disappeared from my estimate showed up on his at 3%. And where on earth did France come from??? (Although, on my first DNA test estimate 2% Iberian Peninsula showed for me. And one of my ancestors was said to be a French Huguenot.) Yes, these are definitely estimates, subject to further change, but the gist of it does seem to follow the paper trail. 🙂
It’s important to remember, too, that even though we give half of our genes to each child, each child gets a different mix of half our genes. Tim’s brother doesn’t show any of Norway or Ireland, but has a lot more of Scotland than Tim does. (Maybe someday I will get my sister on board with getting a test!)
“Mountain Lakes, Olden, Norway” by Willard Metcalf
Another thing we can do in our own rooms is to return to travels we have already taken. This is not a fashionable idea. Most of the time, we are given powerful encouragement to engineer new kinds of travel experiences. The idea of making a big deal of revisiting a journey in memory sounds a little strange – or simply sad. This is an enormous pity. We are hugely careless curators of our own pasts. We push the important scenes that have happened to us at the back of the cupboard of our minds and don’t particularly expect to see them ever again. ~ The Book of Life ~ On Confinement
Barbara’s latest ethnicity estimate from Ancestry DNA
Eastern Europe & Russia 43% England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 28% Germanic Europe 20% Ireland & Scotland 3% Baltics 3% Norway 2% Italy 1%
We recently added more ethnicity populations and communities. Based on this update, you might see changes to your results. ~ Ancestry.com
Tim’s latest ethnicity estimate from Ancestry DNA
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 71% Ireland & Scotland 21% Germanic Europe 6% Norway 2%
The last time we examined our DNA results was in 2014, about 5 years ago. (penetrating the past) We both have some interesting changes in our results!
For me, the Italian connection all but disappeared, which seems about right because I could never find one on the paper trail. Norway shows up solidly in about the right amount for my 3rd-great-grandfather, and Ireland as well, for his wife, my 3rd-great-grandmother. My father’s Slavic (Ukrainian) origins gained a larger percentage in my DNA. I’m intrigued with a new category, 3% Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).
Interestingly, Tim also seems to be 2% Norway. But he’s a whopping 92% England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Northwestern Europe. And this analysis turns up absolutley no European Jewish ancestry, in spite of having a Jewish maternal grandfather. Still a mystery.
So, on Christmas Eve, we were sitting around our table working on a jigsaw puzzle and listening to holiday music with my sister and brother-in-law. I had made the shuffling playlist for my iPod years ago and had included tunes from many traditions. When the Dreidel Song came on my sister asked Tim if his family had celebrated Hanukkah when he was a child. The answer was no, although his stepgrandmother often brought Jewish foods to the house during the holidays. And then, much to my astonishment, he mentioned that his maternal grandfather had converted to Judaism. What!?!
This definitely would explain the lack of European Jewish ancestry for Tim!
It never ceases to amaze me how memories are stirred up in the oddest ways. And how a non-genealogical question lead to a spontaneous answer containing an important clue, which led to the solving of a genetic conundrum.
It will be fun to see any future changes in our DNA analyses as the scientists fine-tune the estimates as their population samples continue to grow.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is rapture in the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet can not all conceal. ~ George Gordon Byron (The Complete Works of Lord Byron)
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~ John Ruskin (Words of Wisdom: John Ruskin)
It is also November. The noons are more laconic and the sundowns sterner, and Gibraltar lights make the village foreign. November always seemed to me the Norway of the year. ~ Emily Dickinson (Letter to Elizabeth Chapin Holland, November 1865)
Autumn wins you best by this its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay! ~ Robert Browning (Paracelsus)
Over time, I have come to realize that our culture has made valuable contributions to our world heritage at large. For me, it’s important to turn the spotlight on these contributions, and not just the more recent ones, but also our fantastic contributions to craftsmanship and technology. Shipbuilding was the rocket science of the Viking era. ~ Sigurd Aase (Draken Harald Hårfagre ~ Expedition America 2016)
On a gray, misty Saturday we went over to Mystic Seaport to see the Viking longship Draken Harald Hårfagre. Draken means dragon and Harald Hårfagre refers to Norwegian King Harald Fairhair. I didn’t get to see her sail into Mystic with her red silk sail because we had been in North Carolina visiting the little one. But much to my delight, the ship will be wintering here at the Seaport. She will be covered over, though. If I keep my eye on the newsletters from Mystic Seaport, a living history museum, I hope to catch her sailing away in the spring.
10.8.16 ~ costumed Viking enthusiasts who were also waiting in line
Draken Harald Hårfagre is the end result of a daydream of the ship’s owner, Sigurd Aase. After our tour I bought a lovely souvenir guidebook, full of stunning pictures of the journey here from her home port in Haugesund, Norway. Stops were made at the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and cities along the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes. Then it went through the New York State canals to the Hudson River and finally down the river to New York City and then Mystic.
It’s a big challenge to sail a ship of this old variety, and to prove that it is possible to sail a large open Viking ship across the seas. ~ Capt. Björn Ahlander (Draken Harald Hårfagre ~ Expedition America 2016)
10.8.16 ~ Draken Harald Hårfagre
notice the fika (coffee) “machine” near the entrance to the galley ~ our guide assured us that modern-day coffee was very important to the crew members!
personal items were stored in these chests which fit in the deck of the ship ~ the lid becomes part of the deck itself ~ our guide explained that no part of the ship is water tight so they wrapped their belongings in plastic before putting them in these narrow chests
notice the little dinghy with a sail tethered to the longship
“King Harald Fairhair” as portrayed by Peter Franzén on the History Channel’s television drama “Vikings”
And now for a pet peeve of mine. There were several visitors wearing “Viking” helmets with horns who were approached by other visitors asking them where they could get a helmet for themselves. Of course they weren’t for sale on the ship or at the museum gift shop! The guide book, if they cared to read it, debunks the myth of the horned helmet:
One of the most widespread myths in history is the one about the Vikings wearing horned helmets. Their helmets had no horns. The popular image dates back to the 1800s, when Scandinavian artists like Sweden’s Gustav Malmström included the headgear in the their portrayals of the raiders. When Wagner staged his Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly refers to as the “Ring cycle” in the 1870s, costume designer Carl Emil Doepler created horned helmets for the Viking characters, and an enduring stereotype was born. ~ Draken Harald Hårfagre guidebook ~ Expedition America 2016
The line to tour the ship, which only took a few minutes, was very long and stretched around other exhibits at the Seaport. Fortunately we were near the beginning and were marveling at how long the line still was two hours later. In spite of the rain!
The Gokstad ship we saw in Norway last year was one of the inspirational sources for the design of this ship: Viking Ship Museum.
This is a fantastic opportunity to create history by reliving the challenges our Viking ancestors overcame. An adventure one wouldn’t miss for the world. It is thrilling to bring the Sagas to life and do something a little crazy and down to earth at the same time. ~ Arild Nilsen (Draken Harald Hårfagre ~ Expedition America 2016)
